Samsung’s so-called “revolutionary” fingerprint authentication system for the Galaxy A10 phone appears to be offering less than satisfactory results as it is discovered that any thumbprint can unlock one.

Biometric ‘Fail’

South Korean phone giant Samsung has received some unwanted bad publicity for its new Galaxy A10 phone after an article appeared in the Sun newspaper highlighting how a British couple discovered that, after putting a low-priced screen protector (purchased from eBay) on the phone, each other’s thumb print could unlock the phone.

The thumbprint scanner, which uses ultrasound to detect 3D ridges in fingerprints and only is supposed to recognise the thumbprint that has been registered by the user is reported to have recognised both of the thumbprints of user Lisa Neilson and both of her husband.

Patch

Samsung is reported to have acknowledged the fault and to be in the process of preparing a software patch to fix it.

Google Pixel ‘Face Unlock’ Issue

It seems that Samsung isn’t the only company struggling to produce a biometric phone security system that works properly.

The BBC has recently reported that after testing Google’s Pixel 4 phone’s Face Unlock system, it was discovered that with normal default settings on, the phone could be unlocked even if the user’s eyes were closed. The problem with this is that the phone could potentially be unlocked by another unauthorised person while the user is asleep simply by holding the phone in front of the user’s face.

The phone does, however, offer a ‘lockdown’ mode which users can switch to in order to deactivate the facial recognition system altogether.

Biometrics – The Way Forward?

Even though multi-factor authentication is more secure than relying on just a password for authentication, a continued reliance on weak passwords and password sharing by users, coupled with more sophisticated cyber and phone crime techniques mean that there is a strong argument for biometric methods of authentication, and a move towards what Microsoft has recently described as a “passwordless future”.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Even though biometrics has been shown to make things much more difficult for cyber-criminals to crack, as the A10 and the Pixel 4 security systems illustrate, biometrics have not been 100% successful to date and is still needs some work.  In fact, this is not the first time that a Samsung Galaxy has been in the news for a biometric issue. For example, a Reddit user recently claimed to have used a 3D printer to clone a fingerprint and then use that fake fingerprint to beat the in-display fingerprint reader on the Galaxy S10. Also, there was the report of the Twitter user who claimed to have fooled Nokia 9 PureView’s fingerprint scanner by using somebody else’s finger, and then just a packet of chewing gum, and of the incident back in May 2017 where a BBC reporter said that he’d been able to fool HSBC’s biometric voice recognition system by passing his brother’s voice off as his own.

There is no doubt that the move away from passwords to biometrics is now underway, but we are still in the relatively early stages.

A recent report from cyber-security company RSA has highlighted a significant rise in fraud via fake banking apps.

Number of Attacks Has Trebled

The Fraud and Risk Intelligence (FRI) team at RSA have noted a tripling of the number of fraud attacks via fake mobile banking apps in the first six months of this year with rogue mobile app fraud generally up by a staggering 191 per cent.

Fake Mobile Apps Exploit Digital Finance Trust

Not only did the 40,344 fraud attacks represent a 63 per cent rise, but 29 per cent of those attacks were recorded as coming from fake mobile apps.

In fact, the report identified an 80 per cent rise in the use of financial malware in the first half of this year, highlighting how cyber-criminals are using the transformation of finance to the digital world and the increasing trust of users in financial apps and digital financial transactions as a way in.

Changing

Tech and finance commentators have noted that as companies offer more convenient digitised financial initiatives to customers e.g. open banking, and as this has necessitated customers engaging in more digital touchpoints, it has led to a widening of the potential ‘attack surface’ that criminals can take advantage of.

Could Banks Do More?

An Immuniweb report from August this year noted that a massive 98 per cent of the world’s100 leading financial technology (fintech) startup companies are vulnerable to web and mobile app attacks, and that 97 of the 100 largest banks are also vulnerable to web and mobile attacks which could facilitate a breach of sensitive data.

The Immuniweb report also highlighted mobile financial apps as being a problem area with all mobile apps tested showing at least one ‘medium risk’ security vulnerability, and 97 per cent having at least two medium/high-risk vulnerabilities. The tests also showed that over 50 per cent of mobile app backends have serious SSL/TLS misconfigurations or privacy issues which could be traced to not having robust-enough web server security.

This has led to some speculation that banks and other financial organisations could be doing more to help close potential security loopholes in their apps, thereby offering better protection to customers.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Mobile apps offer banks and other financial organisations a way to offer convenience and added value to their customers who want to be able to manage their finances on the go. However, legitimate app security problems, a proliferation of fake/rogue financial apps and a widening of the potential attack plane that this brings to consumers who increasingly trust their finances to mobile digital transactions have increased the attack plane and the risks that businesses and consumers face.

As users of banking and other financial apps, we can help protect ourselves by sticking to some basic security procedures such as not clicking on links in unfamiliar messages or texts (to avoid loading malware), keeping a close eye on our bank transactions, and by being very cautious when downloading apps of any kind. For example, to minimise the risk of falling victim rogue/fake apps, you should check the publisher of an app, check which permissions the app requests when you install it, delete any apps from your phone that you no longer use, and contact your phone’s service provider or visit the high street store if you think you’ve downloaded a malicious/suspect app.

Some of Microsoft’s enterprise-based customers may be feeling cautious about installing the latest Windows 10 update because Microsoft warns that it could stop the Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service from running.

The Update and Warning

The update in question is the October 15, 2019 KB4520062 (OS Build 17763.832).  The update contains a long list of improvements and fixes (see here for full details: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4520062/windows-10-update-kb4520062), but also three known issues, one of which concerns the Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) service.

What Is The ATP?

The ATP is a paid-for service, for Microsoft Enterprise customers (not Home or Pro customers) that’s designed to help enterprise networks prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to advanced threats. It offers features like endpoint behavioural sensors embedded in Windows 10, Cloud security analytics and access to threat intelligence generated by Microsoft hunters, security teams, and augmented by threat intelligence provided by Microsoft’s partners.

What’s The Issue With the Update?

In the update’s release notes Microsoft says, “We suggest that devices in an affected environment do not install this optional non-security update”.

The reason given for the warning is that installing the update could mean that the ATP service could stop running and may fail to send reporting data.  This could mean that certain enterprise customers are more exposed to security threats until a solution has been found.

Microsoft also warns that an error (0xc0000409) may be received in MsSense.exe.

Not Fixed Until November

Microsoft says that although it’s working on a resolution it estimates that it won’t have a solution to the problem until November.

One of Several Update Problems Recently

This is one of several updates from Microsoft recently that have come with problems.  For example, an update on the 16th of September was reported to have caused issues with Windows Defender.  Later in September, Microsoft had to issue two emergency Windows updates to protect against some serious vulnerabilities relating to Internet Explorer and Windows Defender (anti-virus software).

Also, the October 3 update is reported to have adversely affected the Start Menu and print spooler, and the Start Menu issues were reported to be still present following the 8 October update.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Although Home and Pro customers need not worry about this particular issue, Microsoft’s valued Enterprise customers, who have paid for the ATP service to help stay ahead of the game in security may be a little worried and frustrated at having to either wait until November to enjoy the improvements of the new (optional) update in safety, or install it now and risk the loss of their ATP service and face the associated potential security risks.

Microsoft customers seem to have suffered several problems related to updates in recent months, and Enterprise customers are likely to be those that Microsoft particularly does not want to upset.  It is likely, therefore, that Microsoft will be focusing of getting an appropriate solution to the new update issues before November if possible.

Berlin-based Security Research Labs (SRL) discovered possible hacking flaws in Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google Home speakers and installed their own voice applications to demonstrate hacks on both device platforms that turned the assistants into ‘Smart Spies’.

What Happened?

Research by SRL led to the discovery of two possible hacking scenarios that apply to both Amazon Alexa and Google Home which can enable a hacker to phish for sensitive information in voice content (vishing) and eavesdrop on users.

Knowing that some of the apps offered for use with Amazon Echo and Google Home devices are made by third parties with the intention of extending the capability of the speakers, SRL was then able create its voice apps designed to demonstrate both hacks on both device platforms. Once approved by both device platforms, the apps were shown to successfully compromise the data privacy of users by using certain ‘Skills and actions’ to both request and collect personal data including user passwords by eavesdropping on users after they believed the smart speaker has stopped listening.

Amazon and Google Told

SRL’s results and the details of the vulnerabilities were then shared with Amazon and Google through a responsible disclosure process. Google has since announced that it has removed SRL’s actions and is putting in place mechanisms to stop something similar happening in future.  Amazon has also said that it has blocked the Skill inserted by SRL and has also put in preventative mechanisms of the future.

What Did SRL’s Apps Do?

The apps that enabled the ‘Smart Spy’ hacks took advantage of the “fallback intent”, in a voice app (the bit that says I’m sorry, I did not understand that. Can you please repeat it?”), the built-in stop intent which reacts to the user saying “stop” (by changing the functionality of that command after the apps were accepted), and leveraged a quirk in  Alexa’s and Google’s Text-to-Speech engine that allows inserting long pauses in the speech output.

Examples of how this was put to work included:

• Requesting the user’s password through a simple back-end change by creating a password phishing Skill/Action. For example, a seemingly innocent application was created such as a horoscope.  When the user asked for it, they were given a false error message e.g. “it’s not available in your country”.  This triggered a minute’s silence which led to the user being told “An important security update is available for your device. Please say start update followed by your password.” Anything the user said after “start” was sent to the hacker, in this case, thankfully, SRL.
• Faking the Stop Intent to allow eavesdropping on users. For example, when a user gave a ‘stop’ command and heard the ‘Goodbye’ message, the app was able to continue to secretly run and to pick up on certain trigger words like “I” or words indicating that personal information was about to follow, i.e. “email”, “password” or “address”. The subsequent recording was then transcribed and sent back to SRL.

Not The First Time

This is not the first time that concerns have been raised about the spying potential of home smart speakers.  For example, back in May 2018, A US woman reported that a private home conversation had been recorded by her Amazon’s voice assistant, and then sent it to a random phone contact who happened to be her husband’s employee. Also, as far back as 2016, US researchers found that they could hide commands in white noise played over loudspeakers and through YouTube videos in order to get smart devices to turn on flight mode or open a website. The researchers also found that they could embed commands directly into recordings of music or spoken text.

Manual Review Opt-Out

After the controversy over the manual, human reviewing of recordings and transcripts taken via the voice assistants of Google, Apple and Amazon, Google and Apple had to stop the practice and Amazon has now added an opt-out option for manual review of voice recordings and their associated transcripts taken through Alexa.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Digital Voice Assistants have become a popular feature in many home and home-business settings because they provide many value adding functions in personal organisation, as an information point and for entertainment and leisure.  It is good news that SRL has discovered these possible hacking flaws before real hackers did (earning SRL some good PR in the process), but it also highlights a real risk to privacy and security that could be posed by these devices by determined hackers using relatively basic programming skills.

Users need to be aware of the listening potential of these devices, and of the possibility of malicious apps being operated through them.  Amazon and Google may also need to pay more attention to the reviewing of third party apps and of the Skills and Actions made available in their voice app stores in order to prevent this kind of thing from happening and to close all loopholes as soon as they are discovered.

Google has announced that in a series of steps starting in Chrome 79, all mixed content will gradually be blocked by default.

What Is Mixed Content?

Mixed content refers to the insecure http:// sub-resources that load into https:// pages, thereby creating a possible way in for attackers to compromise what appears to be a secure web page.  For example, this could be any audio, video, and images that are loaded insecurely from HTTP but appear as part of an HTTPS page when it loads.  Many browsers are already able to block other types of mixed content by default such as scripts and iframes.

Why Worry?

Mixed content from a non-secure source poses privacy and security risks and could provide a way for attackers to spread misinformation.  For example, an attacker could alter a chart to mislead viewers or could hide a tracking cookie in a mixed resource load.  Also, the mix of secure and insecure content in a page could confuse browser security UX.  Google’s own research shows that Mobile devices account for the majority of unencrypted end-user traffic.

What Does HTTPS Do?

HTTPS provides a secure, encrypted channel for web connections that can protect users against issues such as eavesdroppers, man-in-the-middle attacks and hijackers spoofing a trusted website. The kind of encryption offered by HTTPS stops interception of your information and ensures the integrity of the information that you send and receive.

Older hardware and software can pose a privacy and security risk because it often doesn’t support modern encryption technologies.

Progress

Progress has been made to make web browsing more secure with the move towards the full introduction of HTTPS, and Google is keen to point out that Chrome users now spend over 90% of their browsing time on HTTPS on all major platforms.

Google now sees its next task as ensuring that HTTPS configurations across the web are secure and up to date.

Roll-Out In Steps

Google says that the roll-out of its blocking of mixed content will happen in a series of steps starting with the release of Chrome 79 (in December 2019) with its new setting to unblock mixed content on specific sites.  Next, Chrome 80 (due for release in January 2020) will auto-upgrade mixed audio and video resources to https://.  Chrome 80 will display a “Not Secure” chip in the Omnibox for mixed images.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The introduction of measures to display warnings about and to block mixed content will put pressure on some businesses to clean up their web pages and make it more difficult for cyber-criminals to find a way through browser security.  This is good news for businesses and web users alike.

It should be remembered, however, that secure websites with encrypted connections can still be harmed by certain cryptographic weaknesses e.g. due to external or related-domain hosts, so it’s important for businesses and individuals to keep up to date with software patches and fixes.